


The Forgeries of Jealousy

by mamculuna



Category: Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:45:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamculuna/pseuds/mamculuna
Summary: Titania wants to even things up with Oberon, and she thinks she knows how to do it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [allofmyheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allofmyheart/gifts).



Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania!  
_A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ (2.1.429)

The fairies wafted like wisps of fog into the bedrooms, blessing the sleeping guests as Oberon had commanded, and at first Titania drifted with them, touching a sweet sleeping face here and there with her gossamer fingers.

But something wasn’t right. Little echoes of memory kept resounding in her head—the touch of donkey fur against her lips, the raucous bray as she slipped out of her robes. Something had happened.

She stood in the doorway and watched Oberon slyly touching Hermia’s round bottom as he blessed her. Of course he did. 

Titania wouldn’t have minded inviting the Athenians into her pleasures with her lover. She sighed at the thought of the young bodies all intertwined with the ectoplasmic limbs that she and Oberon could so sweetly bare, a possibility even he might not have entertained, she thought.

But what she remembered now, very clearly, was something quite different. Her boy. Her Binu, child of Lakshmi, whom she’d loved—he was no longer hers.

She floated over to the Lord of Fairies on a cloud of rage, nevertheless admiring his well-muscled shoulders and dark sultry eyes as she drew near.

“My master.” She knelt submissively beside him, letting her golden hair drift and fall over his knees, and touching his thigh gently as she fixed her violet eyes on his. She kept the anger carefully to one side of her heart and willed herself to look at him as she had when first they met, in the dawn of the world.

Puck came dancing towards them, but Oberon waved him away. “Go watch the meeting of the giants and wizards, sprite. Now our alliance with Theseus and the humans is made firm, we’ll find out their evil plots and end them.” He turned back to Titania.

“My lady.” He drew her up to sit beside him, caressing her hand sensuously. Yes, thought the Fairy Queen, it was a very self-satisfied smile that he was giving her, though it was no doubt intended to be amorous.

“Shall we seek our grotto, sweet lord? Shall we bed with musk roses and the wild woodbine?” She made her voice as low and tremulous as she could, leaning her full breasts against his arm.

“Dawn will speed us there in her swift chariot,” Oberon declaimed, making Moth and Peaseblossom pretend to hurl behind his back.

And it was so.

Over the Indian Ocean, the rosy clouds reflected in the jade green water. Oberon and Titania danced through the last stars of morning, sinking slowly through the mists. As a ray of the sun touched them, they slipped down and down toward the secret grotto where Puck and Moth and Mustardseed sat quarreling. Titania sent them an irritated glare, making her fairies pull Puck into the sea, laughing.

As the fairy couple sank toward the velvety moss of the couch, Oberon gently pulled away the diaphanous robe that covered the queen’s ageless body, touching the sweet skin with his lips as they melted together.

Titania arched her back and moaned, making Oberon hold her tightly as his powerful hand parted her legs.

And then she doubled over, coughing and retching, her face suddenly a mask of misery.

“Oberon,” she gasped, and reached for his hand. “I’m—I’m not well.”

“My beauty,” he sighed, letting her go, just a bit. “How can you, immortal queen, be ill?”

She shuddered and collapsed into a ball, shrinking away from him. “It must have been that—that ass, that donkey, that disgusting creature. Paugh! Filthy fur, wretched humors hiding in his awful body. I touched him, Oberon, I gave him my love. His hideous spirit must have infected mine.”

She sobbed. “Oberon, what can I do? What if the illness that made him an ass makes me one, too?” She tossed and moaned, watching his frown with quiet satisfaction. My boy, she thought. Binu. I will have you back, whatever it may cost. 

She had to admit that she wanted Oberon’s hands to continue their journey over her body, but the thought of Binu gave her resolve.

“Come, my fairies,” she called as weakly as she could. “Come, bear me with your gentle, magic hands, back to my own secret cell, the hidden glen where no one else may come.” 

Peaseblossom obediently supported her, and Cobweb took the other side, beating his powerful diaphanous wings as they lifted her away from Oberon’s grotto into the silky clouds, now burnished with gold.

Oberon perched, frowning, on the promontory that overlooked the lazy river. He was irritated, detumescent, frustrated—and further peeved by the niggling feeling that he himself might have had a role in causing this mess. 

And everything had been going so well. He had achieved the alliance with Theseus, bringing the prospect of ending the threats of the giants at last, and he’d outsmarted Titania to get the changeling boy. Everything was fine, except for the part where he’d mated his beloved to an ass.

Puck sat beside him, gently plucking a tune on his lyre. An aggravating tune, too, thought Oberon.

“Puck!” Oberon crashed his mighty hand against the rock, jarring the mountainside and making avalanches cascade into the valley below. He brushed his dark curls away from his eyes and glared at his small servant.

“More music, master?” Puck struck a pose, tilted his head, and began his song. “Where the bee sips…” 

Oberon raised an eyebrow, and Puck stopped. 

“Go watch her. Be sure she's really ill and not playing some game with me.“ The fairy king stalked off into jungle, and the sprite immediately took flight into the Western Ghats, where Titania hid her enchanted refuge.

Moth and Cobweb stood at grim sentry duty when Puck arrived, but he congratulated himself on his clever deception, masking himself as Mustardseed returning from a late frolic with the bats and owls. Amazing, he thought as he slipped into Titania’s private chamber in the heart of a tree, these fool fairies suspect nothing.

Titania lay on the bed of blossoms, her face a wretched shade of green and her moans heartrending. Peaseblossom fanned her with his wings and bent anxiously to hear her ragged breath.

Satisfied, Puck bore the tale of woe to his master, never guessing that he, the master of illusion, might himself have been tricked by an apparition.

For the true Titania was already back in Athens, back in the palace, back in the bridal chamber. When Theseus roused himself and wandered out to find the jakes, Titania took his place in the great carved and gilded bed where Hippolyta lay sleeping.

Delightful memories flooded Titania’s mind and body as she stroked the long lush curve of Hippolyta’s hip and thigh, and she sighed at the need to move on to business once again. Tomorrow, Titania promised herself, a night in bed with somebody, no matter who, with no interruptions. 

But now she bent to nuzzle Hippolyta’s long neck and gently tease her into wakefulness, and made herself wait patiently until she’d gained the dark beauty’s cooperation in her plans.

Meanwhile, Oberon sat sulking, once again in his grotto, watching dryads and houris teach fairies new dances. But he’d seen all this before, and none of it could pull him out of the miasma of loss and guilt that clouded his usually brilliant face. Titania, he thought. No immortal could die of an illness, at least he hoped not, but the stupid trick with the mechanic turned ass had cost him a lovely night’s work making up from the quarrel, and who knew how long her malady might last. What does donkey love do to fairy queens, anyway?

Yes, he had to admit, there was no one like Titania. All these young sylphs and whatnot, they were charming, but only his queen had the power to reach in and twist his soul while she played with his body. The young ones were always so awed by him that they spent the whole night trying to please him, but Titania—she could tease and challenge, tempt and frustrate, and finally satisfy a hunger only she could rouse. He fidgeted with remorse. Even one night was too much to miss.

And then the owl arrived, bearing its message. Hippolyta! Suddenly the world was bright again for Oberon. He thought the wedding had meant the end of afternoons with the Amazon queen, pitting his power against her strength, but here already was an invitation. 

He’d never have chosen Hippolyta over Titania, but if his own queen was unavailable…. The warm, soft skin and long dark curls of the Amazon, those powerful legs wrapped around him—the memories made the morning into a new day for Oberon. In a moment he’d returned to the palace in Athens. 

He walked silently to the door of the bedchamber, planning to amaze and overwhelm the warrior queen. Just as he stepped through the open door, he made his chiton vanish, leaving him bare as in a bath, with all his amorous gifts on display.

He stood in the doorway for a long shocked moment as the angry Theseus, strapped in armor over his chiseled muscles, brandished his actual bronze sword. Oberon had a flashing vision of an interesting threesome, but Theseus was in no mood to play.

“Cuckold me in my wedding week! My wedding bed! You pig! You’re here to rape my wife and take my palace—I know you!”

Theseus in rage stalked toward the naked fairy, and Oberon back away, holding up his arms in innocent protest. 

“Never! I never meant to touch Hippolyta, I swear.”

“Whatever you meant, you’re not doing it. I can’t kill an immortal, but I can end our alliance, and I do so! Now! Fight the giants and wizards on your own—no more human help.”

Theseus pace and ranted, slamming his sword against the doorframe. 

“Go! Leave! Back to your fairyland, you dog!”

Oberon didn’t wait for a second invitation.

Once again on the mountaintop in India, he lounged in the shade of the ancient trees and moped. All the work that had gone into forging the alliance with Theseus and the humans, ruined in a moment.

He sighed and walked into the stream, splashing his humiliated body with the cool water. 

And then he heard a musical laugh, and next saw the deep violet eyes and creamy skin of the magical queen. Her golden hair stole light from the sun.

“Problems, my king?” She smiled and walked into the water, her eyes fastened on his, burning into him. He wanted nothing so much as to take her lithe waist and full breasts into his hands. He wanted nothing so much as to shake her until her teeth chattered.

“You aren’t sick. You did this,” he growled. “I don’t know how, but I know it was you.” 

She knelt in a provoking display of grace and mockery. “Did what, my liege?” She smiled so that he could see her dimples and her delicate pointed teeth.  
“Hippolyta! Theseus! The fairy-human alliance. You—you—“ He was stammering with rage and desire.

“I did something to you? Oh, no, my lord. I think the first trick was your own.” Her eyes flashed. “Bad enough that I make love to an ass. Bad enough that all my fairies and your little demon Puck are laughing at me. But that wasn’t bad enough—for you.” 

She walked up until her body was close enough to touch. The fire from her eyes could have destroyed cities.

“You took my Binu, the child I’d sworn to protect, to care for. The child of my beloved Lakshmi. And for what? To run around and play your stupid games.”

Oberon sighed. “And you want him back.”

“Exactly.”

“And why should I do that?”

“Because I can persuade Theseus that you thought you were coming to be with me, not Hippolyta. Because I can stop him from breaking the alliance.”

Defeat, thought Oberon. Back to the beginning. He waved at Puck, and in a moment the laughing Binu was splashing in the water and clinging to Titania’s legs.

She stooped and gathered the child into her arms, covering his black curls with kisses. “My angel boy.” 

Over Binu’s head, her eyes met Oberon’s with pride and invitation. “Maybe tonight? No interruptions?”

**Author's Note:**

> Wish I could make these characters as sexy and sophisticated as they deserve, but at least here's an Act VI that goes better for Titania than Act V did.


End file.
